Ever since the Megaupload closure, hackers part of the Anonymous collective have been launching distributed denial of service (DDOS) attacks against government websites as a form of protest and now, the United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US-CERT) released an advisory to help site administrators deal with these campaigns.

“US-CERT is aware of public reports of ongoing distributed denial-of-service attacks against entities in the government and private sector. According to the reports, these attacks are being attributed to the hacker group Anonymous,” reads the statement from US-CERT.

The organization advises users and administrators to follow some basic steps to reduce the risk associated with this “denial-of service malware campaign.”

First of all, they’re advised to keep an eye out for suspicious emails containing attachments. Opening a cleverly designed attachment could allow a cybercriminal to infiltrate a network and cause serious damages.

Antivirus solutions should always be kept up to date to make sure that known threats are blocked from infecting computing devices.

By understanding all these concepts, website administrators and users have a better chance of defending their assets against malware attacks and ones attempting to use social engineering to steal private information.

Hackers always say that security is an illusion and they claim that no protection measures are good enough to keep them at bay. On the other hand, by following the steps proposed by CERT, potential victims have a better chance of securing themselves against cyberattacks.

US-CERT will provide further information on the matter as soon as it becomes available.